If you watch the Car and Track videos on YouTube, you’ll notice a trend: host Bud Lindemann tends to become more and more pessimistic about the cars that are being tested as the years march on. He might like the Camaro one year and totally trash it the next. But overall, you can see the impacts that were being felt throughout the automotive world by listening to his derision of newer vehicles as a whole: down on power, softer suspensions meant to convey “luxury”, the loss of sporting feel, and the stranglehold of emissions equipment from the early days ate away at what Lindemann seemed to really enjoy about vehicles. He wasn’t shy in the least about highlighting the bad points of a car. If he were able to try that today, he’d be blackballed from press fleets in seconds flat, we reckon.
But 1971 wasn’t that bad of a year, was it? Hell no…every last big-block from the Class of 1970 was out and still playing for keeps, and Oldsmobile was still jamming them into the 442. This green convertible, if it’s still around, would be a rare bird: 1,304 442 convertibles were made for 1971, of which 110 were W-30 cars and 32 of those, four-speed cars. Care to guess how much it’d cost you to get into one of these today?
Hey Bryan,
thanks for the post, I\’ve been watching videos on youtube for a while now and I really like the oldies, they are goldies, no doubt about that!
F.
0-70 in 7.3 sec , not bad, and thats with slippery , old pizza cutter tires .
I knew someone who bought a 1971 442 W-30 4 spd. hardtop.
It went 13.66 brand new & untouched.
Very nice car, silver w/black interior.